ABC Radio interview today (and online)

Conference

Today I talk to Andrea Gibbs on the ABC national radio “Weekends” show about virtual travel/tourism 12.10 midday in WA (AWST) or 2PM AEST (eastern states of Australia) https://abc.net.au/radio/programs/weekends/weekends/12257712 OR here

Join Andrea Gibbs on this weekend to discover how virtual reality holidays allow you to not only see and hear the sights and sounds of your holiday but for the first time ever touch and taste.

ABC Weekends
An official at a PlayUp Perth event some years ago (note reverential body language).

I see they are talking about virtual holidays rather than virtual tourism and travel but I will see what I can talk about (very painful to talk about holidays when one is not going on one).

I think the change is because they read my the Conversation article “Virtual reality adds to tourism through touch, smell and real people’s experiences.”

And following up my earlier post on virtual travel and tour apps, here is a recent article from CNET.COM on VR escape rooms. It threads back to a recent article on their summary of the best (consumer) VR headsets.

VR travel and tour apps

digital heritage, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , , , , , , ,

The Financial Times has published an article entitled “Could this be the moment virtual-reality travel finally takes off?” (You may have to answer a survey to read the article):

“The cartoonish game is less R&R, “more a place of decompression as action”, says Andrew Eiche, chief technology officer at Vacation Simulator’s developer, Owlchemy Labs. He is sceptical that today’s VR headsets are powerful enough to deliver truly realistic recreations of places such as the Sistine Chapel. “Is it really any different to looking at it on a monitor?” he says. “You need to go beyond looking to acting — that is where VR really excels.”

Examples include https://grandtour.myswitzerland.com/ and https://www.virtualyosemite.org/ especially https://www.virtualyosemite.org/virtual-tour/

What are the best VR tours and travel apps? This is a small subset of the best VR apps (the best VR apps according to digital trends).

A company has also made a VR (well, Cinematic/360 VR) of Antarctica (“VR in the freezer”) that is touring Australian museums, and will tour internationally.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

A travel and leisure online article has already suggested VR tours can help relieve the boredom of pandemic lockdowns:

But there is a way to get a little culture and education while you’re confined to your home. According to Fast Company, Google Arts & Culture teamed up with over 2500 museums and galleries around the world to bring anyone and everyone virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world..

Two months ago the Guardian reviewed the world’s best virtual museum and art gallery tours.

Generally these are 360 panoramas, not true VR, but there are convenient tools to help you create your own panoVR (cinematic VR).

Lifewire has listed “7 Great Virtual Reality Travel Experiences”. One example of note is the VR Museum of Fine Art.

There are also projects taking off using live guides through the web with a camera, or who take you on a tour of a real museum with a real but physically remote guide/curator so that museums can still be quasi-open during lockdown.

An example of remote tourism is by the Faroes Islands, a very isolated Scandinavian island nation. They also explain their project:

Via a mobile, tablet or PC, you can explore the Faroes’ rugged mountains, see close-up its cascading waterfalls and spot the traditional grass-roofed houses by interacting – live – with a local Faroese, who will act as your eyes and body on a virtual exploratory tour.
The local is equipped with a live video camera, allowing you to not only see views from an on-the-spot perspective, but also to control where and how they explore using a joypad to turn, walk, run or even jump!

Via a mobile, tablet or PC, you can explore the Faroes’ rugged mountains, see close-up its cascading waterfalls and spot the traditional grass-roofed houses by interacting – live – with a local Faroese, who will act as your eyes and body on a virtual exploratory tour.
The local is equipped with a live video camera, allowing you to not only see views from an on-the-spot perspective, but also to control where and how they explore using a joypad to turn, walk, run or even jump!

VR focus has an interesting article on the development of VR for tourism, and the Virtual Segovia project sounds like it is worth keeping tabs on.

Now before we look at the commercial VR content stores, there are cultural heritage organizations with VR tour/travel content. Some are available via Google .

Europeana

An online portal of major European libraries and museum collections, they have vintage stereo VR and examples of how to create stories and lessons with the stereoVR prints.

Google

For example, Google Earth and Google Earth Voyager (with sections on editors picks, games, layers, quizzes, nature, travel, education).

There is Google Earth VR https://arvr.google.com/earth/ for VIVE and OCULUS headsets (HMDs).

Even Google Streetview can be viewed in Google VR https://www.blog.google/products/google-vr/get-closer-look-street-view-google-earth-vr/

“The new version of Earth VR is available today for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. And if you don’t have one of those systems, you can still check out Street View in VR with your phone—just download the Street View app for Daydream and Cardboard.”

https://artsandculture.google.com/ is a wonderful sight and also has scavenger hunts, at, for example the British Museum.

There are also “virtual tours” based on Google Street View. For example, you can “virtually” visit Chernobyl. Here is an abandoned roller coaster.

An open source alternative to Google Maps is Open Street Map (OSM). There is a youtube video explaining how OSM data can be used with WebVR (“2019: VR Map: Using OSM Data In a WebVR Environment VRmap on Github”) and the app vrmap can be downloaded via Github.

Online/VR Models for Cultural Tourism/Travel

You can also visit online and via VR headsets repositories of 3D models of buildings and landscapes.

The Smithsonian allows you to view tour and download 3D artefacts and has interesting content, such as the Virtual Tour and the VR Hangar.

Sketchfab

But the biggest online 3D/VR repository is arguably Sketchfab. Sketchfab has a Cultural Heritage + History section.

Eg Hagios Aberkios (Theotokos) Monastery Church 9th from Cultural Heritage and History Top 10 – 2020 wk 21
Sketchfab also has a places and travel section.

CYARK is a volunteer organization that has scanned major cultural heritage monuments uses Sketchfab to present their models.

Minecraft VR

For something lighter, families can also visit Minecraft VR “PLUNGE INTO THIS NEW MINECRAFT DIMENSION ON OCULUS RIFT, WINDOWS MIXED REALITY, AND GEAR VR” and a trailer is on Youtube.

Games

Commercial game companies like Ubisoft have explored creating escape game VR and virtual tours inside physical exhibitions such as

Assassin’s Creed VR – Temple of Anubis. Gamasutra has explained their design process for these VR escape rooms.

“At XRDC in San Francisco today Ubisoft Dusseldorf’s Cyril Voiron took to the stage to talk a bit about his work on Ubisoft’s Escape Games, virtual reality experiences that challenge players to escape virtual puzzle rooms.”


NB Trotech exhibited a physical location VR game demo in 2018.

Like brains on your journeys? Not exactly tourism, but some VR games have an element of real-world tourism.

“Face all the horrors that the living and the dead can offer in this new VR adventure in The Walking Dead universe. Travel through the ruins of walker infested New Orleans as you fight, sneak, scavenge, and survive each day unraveling a city wide mystery within the iconic quarters. Encounter desperate factions and lone survivors who could be friend or foe. Whether you help others or take what you want by force, every choice you make has consequences. What kind of survivor will you be for the people of NOLA?”

Or do you want to explore alien worlds? “The latest update from Hello Games adds a whole host of much-requested features to No Man’s Sky, including full, end-to-end support for PlayStation VR.”

One can even “tour” medieval fantasy worlds, or at least the modifications (mods) that are created using the free game creation tools. Here I am referring to Skyrim VR. Can it handle mods? With certain caveats, yes (on PC that is). You can buy it on Steam. Requires Vive, Rift, Valve Index or Windows Mixed Reality. ($89.95 AUD)

COMMERCIAL STORES

Via stores with content for specific HMDs, you can also find VR travel locations. For example, the oculus store lists travel and tourism apps for the OCULUS Quest, RIFT, GO, Gear VR. Enter “travel” into the search bar for each device.

Oculus Rift/Rift S

For example for the Oculus Rift you can visit the “travel” Pantheon Tallinn, Rome Reborn, Patagonia or in Australia, “Claustral Canyon” in Sydney NSW (Rift, Rift S)

Quest

Enter the quest part of the Oculus website and search for travel.

Examples:

Gear

Navigate to the Gear VR Section of the Oculus site and search for travel.

Specific Examples:

Google App store

Enter travel VR into the search bar or tour VR

  • Google Expeditions (free) The Expeditions app and Cardboard viewer and Cardboard Camera were built to bring immersive experiences to as many schools as possible.
  • Titans of Space Plus ($10) Titans of Space® is a short guided tour of our planets and a few stars in virtual reality. Works with Google Cardboard.

Apple App store (for Apple phones)

Viveport (HTC)

Viveport is an online app store for the primary VIVE and Oculus headsets/Windows and has some travel content VR apps

  • Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass is the first virtual reality (VR) experience presented by Musée du Louvre. On view from October 24, 2019 to February 24, 2020 in the Napoléon Hall, this VR experience is an integral component of the museum’s landmark Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, which commemorates the 500th anniversary of da Vinci’s death in France. An extended home version of the VR experience is now available for download through VIVEPORT and other VR platforms, including mobile VR on iOS and Android, for audiences across the globe.
  • AWAVENA “For the Amazonian Yawanawa, ‘medicine’ has the power to travel you in a vision to a place you have never been. Hushahu, the first woman shaman of the Yawanawa uses VR like medicine to open a portal to another way of knowing. This stunning VR experience, directed by the legendary Australian artist Lynette Wallworth, follows her Emmy Award-winning VR film “Collisions.””
  • Church art of Sweden.
  • A Glimpse into China.
  • Virtual Touring of DunHuang: Mogao Cave 61
  • MasterWorks: Journey Through History “Travel to three continents and visit some of the world’s most amazing places that span over 3000 years of human history. Discover the fate of the ancient capital of Thailand, the mysteries of a pre-Incan temple in the Peruvian Andes, the astonishing Native American cliff dwellings of Colorado, and the monument [al stone carvings of Mt Rushmore
  • “in South Dakota. The MasterWorks Museum transports you to four fully explorable environments where you can collect artifacts and learn from archaeologists and scientists as you unravel the mysteries of who built these amazing places and learn about the challenges they face today in a rapidly changing climate.” [now supports Tobii Eye-Tracking!]
  • The Holy City Documentary
  • Nefertari: Journey to Eternity
  • VR Angkor Wat Guided Tour – Cambodia

Current HMD costs/availability

Don’t have a suitable Head Mounted Display? Choice au have a useful guide.

Google Daydream standalone or smartphone VR

  1. Google Daydream View runs with an android phone (Galaxy, Pixel, Moto, LG, Zenfone etc) costing around $330-360 AUD on eBay
  2. Google Daydream Standalone VR (coming soon)

Rethinking Virtual Places

Academic, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation,

I have written a book on the above which looks like (touch wood) will go into production.

I have about 30 images in the planned book but am wondering if I can or should place there an image (8×11 inches, landscape orientation or portrait if there is an area for the cover page text). Do any of the below look ok? Or should I ask a game company for screenshot permission?

Chapter titles are:

1 A Potted History of Virtual Reality
2 Dead, Dying, Failed Worlds
3 Architecture: Places Without People
4 Theories of Place & Cyberspace
5 Rats & Goosebumps-Mind, Body & Embodiment
6 Games are not Interactive Places
7 Do Serious Gamers Learn From Place?
8 Cultural Places
9 Evaluating Sense of Place, Virtual Places & Virtual Worlds
10 Place-Making Interfaces & Platforms
11 Conclusion

Initial image: Microsoft HoloLens in the Duyfken showing mixed reality maps and 3D models (Mafkereseb Bekele PhD project); Ikrom Nishanbaev and Susan at Ballarat Heritage Weekend, Ballarat Town Hall; Ikrom and public member, Ballarat; the HoloLens demo’d at the WA State Archives..

CFPs for May 2020

cfp, Conference, , ,

I have not checked all of these calls for papers but many have moved online, some now offer free registration, but I am not sure how they will be run.

*START*DUECONFTHEMELOCATION
1/09/2024/05/20CASA2020Computer Animation and Social Agents (POSTPONED)Bournemouth UK
3/09/203/06/20ONM2020Inclusive Museum: historical Urban LandscapesLisbon Portugal
23/09/20?BestinHeritagethe best in heritage 2020Dubrivnik Croatia
1/10/2029/05/20CAA2020-GKBig Data in ArchaeologyAthens Greece
1/10/2030/04/20BoundariesBoundaries of Here and NowVenice Italy
10/10/20?Living DHIntegrating the Past into the Present and FutureSydney Australia
1/11/2021/04/20CHIPLAY1 to 4 NovOttawa Canada
1/11/2029/06/20WCHRWorkshop on Computational Humanities ResearchAmsterdam Netherlands
1/11/2029/06/20VRSTVR Software and TechnologyOttawa Canada
4/11/206/06/20TIPC3The Interactive PastsLeiden The Netherlands
22/11/207/07/20JADHJapan Digital Humanities: Microcosms and Hubs (ONLINE)Osaka Japan
??DHAAustralasian Association for Digital Humanities ConferenceChristchurch NZ
9/12/201/10/20GALAGames and Learning Alliance conferenceLavel France
18/12/2029/05/20Tag42theoretical archaeology groupLeicester UK
19/04/21?CAA2021Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in ArchaeologyLimasso Cyprus
8/05/2110/09/20CHI2021CHI2021Yokohama Japan
26/07/21?DH2021Digital HumanitiesTokyo Japan
1/09/21?MW2021Museums on the WebWashington DC
10/10/21?ConnectedpastThe Connected Past 2021 *summer 2021Heraklion Crete
11/07/22?DH2022Digital HumanitiesGraz Austria
START*DUE*CONFERENCETHEMELOCATION
1/09/2024/05/20CASA2020Computer Animation and Social Agents (POSTPONED)Bournemouth UK
1/10/2029/05/20CAA2020-GKBig Data in ArchaeologyAthens Greece
18/12/2029/05/20Tag42theoretical archaeology groupLeicester UK
3/09/203/06/20ONM2020Inclusive Museum: historical Urban LandscapesLisbon Portugal
4/11/206/06/20TIPC3The Interactive PastsLeiden The Netherlands
1/11/2029/06/20WCHRWorkshop on Computational Humanities ResearchAmsterdam Netherlands
1/11/2029/06/20VRSTVR Software and TechnologyOttawa Canada
22/11/207/07/20JADHJapan Digital Humanities: Microcosms and Hubs (ONLINE)Osaka Japan
8/05/2110/09/20CHI2021CHI2021Yokohama Japan
9/12/201/10/20GALAGames and Learning Alliance conferenceLavel France

Open Access Publishing Costs-Books

Book, Open Access, publication, ,
PUBLISHERPOUNDSUSDEUROAUD
Punctum£2,490USD 3,0002,789 €AUD 4,681
Ubiquity Press£3,650USD 4,4174,088 €AUD 6,862
White Rose£6,000USD 7,2606,720 €AUD 11,280
Bloomsbury£6,500USD 7,8657,280 €AUD 12,220
Amsterdam£6,950USD 8,4107,784 €AUD 13,066
Routledge£10,000USD 13,000?AUD 18,800
Springer£11,000USD 15,00011,000 €AUD 20,680

NB Ubiquity Press lists some handy links for funds for open access book publishing.

“Cultural Heritage Infrastructures in Digital Humanities” free for 7 days

Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, Book, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, HCI, heritage, infrastructure, Open Access, publication, respositories, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, ,

Cultural Heritage Infrastructures in Digital Humanities (2017) is free to access for one week, get free access to the book (via this link) for 7 days.

After this 7-day period, you can buy a copy for £10/$15!

You can also visit the official Routledge History, Heritage Studies etc. Twitter page

and thanks to Routledge editor Heidi Lowther.

free Critical Gaming eBook for 7 days

Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, augmented reality, Biofeedback, Book, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, HCI, heritage, infrastructure, Open Access, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, ,

Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage  (2015 edition) is in a Routledge campaign for May (2020), which allows anyone to register and get free access to the book (via this link) for 7 days. After this 7-day period, they can buy a copy for £10/$15!  *Trust me this is a lot cheaper than before!

Also check out the official Routledge History, Heritage Studies etc. Twitter page

Is there a catch? I honestly don’t know but don’t think so!

Virtual Heritage Book Proposal Reviewers

Announcements, Book, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, , , ,
If you’d like to be suggested as a reviewer for an edited book proposal we will send to a publisher on virtual heritage (a concise guide) please let me know and I will tell the editor (I won’t know who the final chosen reviewers will be and I’d rather not re-bother the usual suspects) … with the authors, we are deciding whether to write a very concise 30,000 words or a normal 80,000-word book proposal (but the latter would be more expensive for university students, the primary audience).

Free access: Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places

Book, book chapter, Open Access, publication, , , , , , ,

Routledge is running a monograph sale through June 11th. Readers can now access The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places free-of-charge for seven days. At the end of the trial period, they’ll have the opportunity to purchase the eBook for £10/$15.

Here are the links to the offer.

Book chapter to write for 2021

book chapter, digital heritage, game, serious games, , , ,

With Dr Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller and Dr Katrina Grant (both at ANU), I have decided to write a chapter on serious games for medieval(!) purposes for an edited book by Dr Robert Houghton (publisher still to be confirmed) on medieval games.. but this is not due until March 2021. Still, does this sound potentially interesting?

Chapter 12 by Erik Champion, Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller, and Katrina Grant explores the ways in which Skyrim can be used and modified by undergraduate and postgraduate students to explain, through play, three related aspects of medieval society: the distinctive, related and unique characteristics of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, the art, craft and preservation of calligraphy, literature, inscription and lore; and the importance of the medieval landscape in art history.

 

 

Calls for articles in 2020

digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Journal, virtual heritage, visualisation

ETC press: Well Played

Special Issue Call for Proposals: Well Played: Playable Theatre: For this special issue we invite experiential play-throughs, theoretical papers, critical analyses, and post-mortems by practitioners, across domains from around the world, that explore the many facets of live, interactive experiences. As an interdisciplinary issue, we welcome researchers and creators from theatre, digital and analog game studies, performance studies and related disciplines.

All submissions are 31 May 2020. All submissions and questions should be sent to: well-played (at) lists (dot) andrew (dot) cmu (dot) edu

Change over time Journal

The concept of “integrity” is central to the organizing principles and values of heritage conservation and is frequently evoked in international charters, conventions, and official recommendations. Generally speaking, integrity refers to the wholeness or intactness of a tangible object, place, or property and is a measure by which UNESCO determines the Outstanding Universal Value of a site.1 As a guiding principle of conservation practice, the concept of integrity has evolved from 19th century ideas of the artist’s intent, which located integrity in a moment in time (Viollet le Duc), to 21st century framings of integrity as an emergent condition as proposed by the 2005 Faro Framework Convention which suggests that integrity is neither fixed nor static but is understood through a process of interpreting, respecting, and negotiating complex, and at times, contentious values. Abstracts of 200-300 words are due 5 June 2020. Authors will be notified of provisional paper acceptance by early July 2017. Final manuscript submissions will be due 3 January 2021.

MIT Presence

Guest Editors: GunasekaranManogaran, Hassan Qudrat-Ulla, Ching-Hsien Hsu, Qin Xin Paper Submission Deadline 25-08-2020; Author notification 15-11-2020; Revised papers submission 25-01-2021; Final Acceptance 30-03-2021

JOCCH

ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage – emerging computational and analytical methods and technologies with archival practice (including record keeping), and their consequences for historical, social, scientific, and cultural research engagement with archives. We want to identify potential in these areas and examine the new questions that they can provoke. At the same time, we aim to address the questions and concerns scholarship is raising about issues of interpretation raised by such methods, and in particular the challenges of producing quality – meaning, knowledge and value – from quantity, tracing data and analytic provenance across complex knowledge production ecosystems, and addressing data privacy and other ethical issues.

World History Connected

World History Connected is seeking papers for its next three issues 17.2 ( June 2020), 17. 3  (October, 2020) and 18.1, (February 2021), for special sections that will address new research on, and fresh approaches to, the teaching of 1) the place of the Classical World in World History, from the militarization of Roman elephants to the concept of the Axial Age (deadline for submissions is April  6, 2020); (2) themes in Southeast Asia in World History from Lidar to maritime subjects (deadline for submissions is August 3, 2020) and 3) Games and Simulations in World History, from the use of historical content, to the process of construction and marketing, to use in the classroom (deadline for submissions is November 2, 2020).

 

 

 

 

Changing review affiliations

Journal

Looking at my resume at long last I noticed I am so much busier for some journals than for others and review for others-quite a lot! Time to trim, scale down and maybe talk to a new journal. Ideas are only fresh for so long. I also notice most of the journals are not digital heritage-related and quite a few are not serious games-related!

In the last year or so have been asked to (blind) review for Computers & Graphics, Entertainment Computing, Nature, Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (and book proposals for Routledge, MIT, Oxford..) and I am sure I missed quite a few..

Hmm, quite a few are Elsevier journals..hmm..

Program Committees, Conference Reviews & Journal Boards

Editorial Board member of

  1. The Journal of Computing Applications in Archaeology (I finish my term this month)
  2. Digital Creativity (been a reviewer for a decade I think? Review a lot for them)
  3. Games & Culture (not sure what happened there)
  4. Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds (still review occasionally for them)
  5. The Journal of Interactive Humanities (not sure what happened there)
  6. Studies in the Digital Humanities (not sure what happened there)
  7. Journal of Media Critiques (not sure what happened there, they are busy enough, probably don’t need me
  8. Editorial board member of new Explorations in Heritage Studies book series, Berghahn Books. URL: http://www.berghahnbooks.com/series.php?pg=expl_heri (but never asked to review books. Time to leave officially?)
  9. Invited Scientific Committee member Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting (JVRB) (nice people, but not asked to review many articles).

WAS

  • Loading editorial member (I recommend them, nice group of people)
  • 2011-2018 Editorial board member, International Journal of People-Oriented Programming.
  • International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC) editorial board for 2009-2014.
  • Invited Scientific Committee of Virtual Heritage Network: Ireland.
  • Invited Foundation member, China-Australia Writing Centre, Curtin University.
  • Co-editor of special issue (“Games and Virtual Worlds for History and Heritage”) for Games and Culture, 2011.
  • EU COST trans-domain application reviewer (2013-2015).
  • Invited editor-in-chief of the 2010 CAADRIA special issue, International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC).
  • Special Issue editor or co-editor of Techné: Real and Virtual Places, International Journal of Heritage Studies: Sense(s) of Place, Leonardo: Creative Data.
  • Book/Book Chapter Reviewer: Oxford, Routledge, Bloomsbury, MIT Press, UNPE, and Springer.
  • Past Book Review Co-editor of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations (IJGCMS).

Member of

  1. CIC-The Curtin Institute for Computation, Programme Leader of Visualisation, http://computation.curtin.edu.au/ and on the Steering Committee. [Will leave in September]
  2. ICOMOS-International Council on Monuments and Sites (New Zealand branch) and Was ICIP (ICOMOS International Committee on Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites) member, think they left me off the list. Time to leave ICOMOS?
  3. VSMM-On the Board of Directors, Virtual Systems and Multimedia Society (http://vsmm.org/about/leadership/).
  4. Explore-AT   International Steering Committee. ExploreAT! Exploring Austria’s culture through the language glass is a 751,000€ European research project. (1.4.2015-31.3.2019). Hmm, finished!
  5. ARC Indigenous Discovery Advisory Group member: https://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/new-biodiversity-research-project-aims-to-heal-land-and-people/ Healing Land, Healing People: Novel Nyungar Perspectives, a 5 year project led by Mr Darryl Kickett (2020-2025).
  6. 2020 European Architectural History Network member.
  7. Past (invited) member of Virtual Heritage Network’s Scientific committee, Ireland (http://www.vhnireland.org/).
  8. Ex-AAPI Australia Asia Pacific Institute, Curtin University (2014-2018, the year of its closure).
  9. Ex ACM member.

Past history (ongoing and one-off reviews)

2021     Invited committee member, Australian Museums & Galleries Association (AMaGA) National Conference (Perth).

2020     Reviewed for Digital Humanities 2020, CAA2020. Reviewer for Journal of Aesthetics and Culture and Computers & Graphics Journal.

2019     Invited reviewer: ISEA-International Symposium on Electronic Art (South Korea); CAA (Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology) (Krakow); CAADRIA 2019 (New Zealand); ILRN -Immersive Learning Research Network (London); ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual Reality Continuum and Its Applications in Industry (VRCAI 2019); International Conference on Entertainment Computing and Joint Conference on Serious Games; The Fourth International Conference on Economic and Business Management (FEBM2019) (China), http://www.febm.org/.
Invited journal article reviewer for International Journal of Heritage Studies; invited external reviewer for New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF), Canada; reviewed Australian Research Council (ARC) applications.

2018     Invited reviewer: Digital Heritage 2018 (San Francisco), ICADL-International Conference on Asia-Pacific Digital Libraries (Hamilton), ISEA-International Symposium on Electronic Art (Durban), Web3D ’18 (Poznań), eHeritage (Brasov). Invited reviewer: Journal of Cultural Heritage, Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage.

2017     Invited reviewer for Journal of Archaeological Science. Invited respondent for Current Anthropology (“3D Virtual Replicas and Simulations of the Past: ‘Real’ or ‘Fake’ Representations?” by Fabrizio Galeazzi). Reviewer for DiGRA2017 (Melbourne).
Local Programme Committee co-chair www2017 (Perth), ISEA 2017 (Columbia), CAA2017 (Atlanta) track director, CAADRIA (China), eCAADE2017 (Rome), web3D 2017 tutorials co-chair conference (Brisbane), iLRN2017 (Coimbra), local organizing committee co-Chair, www2017 (Perth), ILRN 2017, Portugal.

2016     ILRN reviewer. Board of Reviewers for CAA (Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology). CAADRIA 2016 reviewer. Programme Committee and Local Organizing Committee for JCSG 2016: Joint Conference on Serious Games 2016, Brisbane 26-27 September 2016. Reviewer: DiGRA 2016. Invited Committee member, CAADRIA 2016 Melbourne, Web3D 2016 Los Angeles, USA and TEEM 2016, Salamanca Spain (also as Scientific Committee member).

Invited book submission reviewer, University Press of New England (UNPE). JCSG 2016 (7th Serious Games Development & Applications (SGDA 2016) and 6th GameDays 2016) conference, Brisbane.

2015     Board of Reviewers for CAA. Reviewed for Slactions 2015, ILRN 2015 International Co-Chair Asia Pacific. ECGBL2015. Invited committee member, VIRTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Museums & Cultural Tourism (VAMCT: Delphi, Greece) and Digital Heritage 2015 (Granada, Spain), Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Australasia 2015 (EVAA 2016: Canberra, Australia), and CHINZ2015: New Zealand Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (Waikato, NZ), Virtual Heritage Network (VHN) Ireland conference.

2014     On editorial board of DiRT (Digital Research Tools) wiki: http://dirt.projectbamboo.org/about.
Invited reviewer for Journal of Cultural Heritage and Computing, ECGBL 2014, CHi2014, ICEC Entertainment Computing 2014, and CAADRIA 2014 Postgraduate Committee. On the committee of Digital Humanities Australia 2014. Invited reviewer for Architectural Design Research Symposium, 20-21 November 2014, Venice. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/fad/research/architectural-research-through-design

2013     Invited conference reviewer for ACM CHI2013: Changing Perspectives, CAADRIA 2013 (and proceedings), ACM Creativity and Cognition 2013 and Slactions 2013. Book proposal reviewer for Routledge. Invited book reviewer for Understanding Machinima (MIT Press), and Heritage and Society (journal).

2012     Invited conference reviewer for the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2012). Invited by the ICOMOS ICIP chair onto the Program Committee of High-Tech Heritage: How Are Digital Technologies Changing Our Views of the Past? Conference, May 2-4, 2012 Amherst, MA USA. (http://www.umass.edu/chs/news/conference2012.html). Invited conference reviewer for Digital Humanities 2012 and IHCI 2012(declined), CAADRIA 2012. Invited conference reviewer for CHINZ 2012, VSMM2012, OZCHi2012, Creativity & Cognition 2012.

2011     Program committee member, 39th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA2011), Beijing, and CAAD Futures 2011, Belgium, Annual ACM SIGCHI NZ Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHINZ 2011), Waikato NZ, Creativity and Cognition 2011 (CC2011), United States, IADIS Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction 2011 (IHCI 2011), Rome.

Reviewer: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI2011, Vancouver, Canada.

Invited book chapter reviewer for Alkhalifa, Eshaa and Gaid, Khulood, (Eds.). Cognitively Informed Interfaces, IGI Global Publishers, 2012.

Program committee member, IADIS Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction 2011.

2010     Invited onto the editorial board of International Journal of People-Oriented Programming.
Co-Programme chair of Computer Human-Interaction New Zealand (CHINZ 2010) in Auckland. Programme Chair Interactive Entertainment 2010 (ie2010), Wellington. Invited Scientific Committee member, 11th VAST International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Paris, and European Computer Game-Based Learning (ECGBL 2010), Copenhagen and Digital Media and its Applications in Cultural Heritage 2010 (DMACH), Jordan. Committee member, Interactive Entertainment 2010 (ie2010), New Zealand. Invited paper reviewer, special issue “Graphics for Cultural Heritage”, Computers & Graphics (Elsevier).

2009     Invited to be editor of special issue of International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC). Invited as Committee reviewer for Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM 2009), Vienna and for European Computer Game-Based Learning (ECGBL 2009), Austria. Invited Programme Committee and Conference Reviewer, (CAADRIA 2009), Taiwan. Invited onto Scientific Committee, International Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting. Committee member, 10th VAST International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archeology and Cultural Heritage, Malta.

2008     Invited onto the Best Presentation Award Committee at CAADRIA 2008 in Chiang Mai. Invited onto the editorial board of Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media (Sage Journal) and International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations. Invited technical committee member for Digital Media and its Applications in Cultural Heritage 2008 (DMACH), Jordan; for Interactive Entertainment 2008 (IE2008), Brisbane; and committee member, Australasian Computer-Human Interaction Conference 2008 (OZCHI), Townsville. Conference paper reviewer, ECGBL 2008.

2007     Invited co-editor for Leonardo Special Issue, MIT Press, and for The International Journal of Heritage Studies. Special issue editor of Techné (2007). On the editorial board of Loading…: The Journal of the Canadian Games Studies Association. Reviewer for The Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting (JVRB), as well as Digital Humanities Quarterly. Invited book proposal reviewer for Routledge. Invited program committee member for OZCHI 2007 Adelaide, Creativity and Cognition 2007 Washington DC, DIMEA 2007 Perth, VSMM 2007 Sydney, Interactive Entertainment (IE2007) Melbourne. Program Committee member, ECGBL 2007: The European Conference on Games Based Learning, Scotland. Invited paper reviewer for DiGRA Situated Play conference, (Digital Games Research Association) Japan, and INTERACT 2007 Conference-Socially Responsible Interaction, Brazil.

2006     Invited panellist for Gaming and Education panel, Greater Brisbane Chapter, IGDA, International Game Developers Association, Sunday, 5 November 2006, http://www.igda.org/brisbane/education_report.html Invited program committee member /reviewer for Digital Interactive Media Entertainment & Arts (DIME 2006) Thailand, OzCHI2006 Sydney; VSMM 2006 China; Interactive Entertainment 2006, New Media and Heritage conference 2006 Hong Kong, SAHANZ 2006, Perth. Paper reviewer for Virtual Reality Journal (Springer). Invited external reviewer for Master’s Thesis examination, Creative Arts, RMIT.

2005     Invited Panellist for VSMM 2005. Journal and chapter reviewer for Enhancing Learning Through Technology (2006), Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities and Technologies (2005), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage (2007). Invited program committee member for International Conference on Virtual Storytelling 2005 conference, France; OzChi2005 conference, Canberra, Interaction Entertainment 2005 Conference, UTS, Sydney. Programme Committee member VSMM2005, Belgium.

Open Access publications

Academic, Announcements, Digital Humanities, Open Access, Proceedings, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, ,

I am often asked to mail commercial books, sorry I normally have to refuse. However, there are recent-ish publications that are open access. allowed via institutional repositories or were free to download, that I have written down here:

Open access or available articles, chapters, etc

Books

  1. Champion, E. (2012). (). Game Mods: Design, Theory and Criticism, Pittsburgh: Entertainment Technology Center Press. 978-1-300-54061-8. URL: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/content/game-mods

Book Chapters

  1. Champion, E. (2020). Games People Dig: Are They Archaeological Experiences, Systems, or Arguments? In S. Hageneuer (Ed.), Communicating the Past in the Digital Age: Proceedings of the International Conference on Digital Methods in Teaching and Learning in Archaeology (12-13 October 2018) (pp. 13-25). London: Ubiquity. https://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/chapters/10.5334/bch.b/
  2. Champion, E. (2019). From Historical Models to Virtual Heritage Simulations. In P. Kuroczyński, M. Pfarr-Harfst, & S. Münster (Eds.), Der Modelle Tugend 2.0 Digitale 3D-Rekonstruktion als virtueller Raum der architekturhistorischen Forschung Computing in Art and Architecture (pp. 337-351). Heidelberg, Germany: arthistoricum.net. https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.515
  3. Champion, E. (2017). “Single White Looter: Have Whip, Will Travel” in Angus A.A. Mol; Csilla E. Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke; Krijn H.J. Boom; Aris Politopoulos, (Eds.)., The Interactive Past: Archaeology, Heritage, and Video Games, Sidestone Press, pp.107-122. URL: http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-interactive-past-50944.html ISBN: 9789088904370.

Journal articles

  1. Rahaman, H., & Champion, E. (2019). To 3D or Not 3D: Choosing a Photogrammetry Workflow for Cultural Heritage Groups. Heritage, 2(3), 1835-1851. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/2/3/112
  2. Champion, E., & Rahaman, H. (2019). 3D Digital Heritage Models as Sustainable Scholarly Resources, Sustainability: Natural Sciences in Archaeology & Cultural Heritage, 11(8). MDPI. Editor, Ioannis Liritzis. Open Access. Invited article. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/8/2425
  3. Nishanbaev, I., Champion, E., & McMeekin, D. A. (2019). A Survey of Geospatial Semantic Web for Cultural Heritage. Heritage, 2(2), 1471-1498. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage2020093
  4. Bekele, M., & Champion, E. (2019). A Comparison of Immersive Realities and Interaction Methods: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage. Frontiers in Robotics and AI | Virtual Environments: Emergent Technologies for Cultural Heritage and Tourism Innovation. doi:10.3389/frobt.2019.00091
  5. Champion, E. (2017). Bringing Your A-Game to Digital Archaeology: Issues with Serious Games and Virtual Heritage and What We Can Do About It. SAA Archaeological Record: Forum on Digital Games & Archaeology, 17 No.2 (special section: Video Games and Archaeology: part two issue), pp. 24-27. March issue. URL: http://www.saa.org/Portals/0/Record_March_2017.pdf
  6. Champion, E. (2016). A 3D PEDAGOGICAL HERITAGE TOOL USING GAME TECHNOLOGY. International Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology & Archaeometry, (special issue, selection of VAMCT2015 conference papers). International Journal MAA (ISI Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Thomson Reuters, USA; Scopus) Vol.16, No.5, pp. 63-72.URL: http://maajournal.com/Issues2016e.php DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.204967
  7. Champion, E. (2016). Worldfulness, Role-enrichment & Moving Rituals: Design Ideas for CRPGs. Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDIGRA), Volume 2 Issue 3 (special issue, “Diversity of play: Games – Cultures – Identities” selected DiGRA2015 conference papers). URL: http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/index
  8. Champion, E. M. (2016). Digital humanities is text heavy, visualization light, and simulation poor. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (DH2015 Special issue). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqw053 URL: http://dsh.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/11/07/llc.fqw053
  9. Champion, E. (2016). Entertaining the Similarities and Distinctions between Serious Games and Virtual Heritage Projects. Special Issue in the Journal of Entertainment Computing on the theme of Entertainment in Serious Games. Vol. 14, May: 67–74. Elsevier. Online. DOI: 1016/j.entcom.2015.11.003. PDF available at Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284930065_Entertaining_The_Similarities_And_Distinctions_Between_Serious_Games_and_Virtual_Heritage_Projects
  10. Champion, E. (2015). Defining Cultural Agents for Virtual Heritage Environments. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments-Special Issue on “Immersive and Living Virtual Heritage: Agents and Enhanced Environments,” Summer 2015, Vol. 24, No. 3: 179–186, MIT Press. URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/pres/24/3 PDF available at Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284930065_Entertaining_The_Similarities_And_Distinctions_Between_Serious_Games_and_Virtual_Heritage_Projects

Conference paper

  1. Champion, E. (2016). Worldfulness, Role-enrichment & Moving Rituals: Design Ideas for CRPGs. Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDIGRA), Volume 2 Issue 3 (special issue, “Diversity of play: Games – Cultures – Identities” selected DiGRA2015 conference papers). URL: http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/index

 

 

 

New chapter: “Art History, Heritage Games, and Virtual Reality”

Announcements, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, publication, virtual heritage, , , , ,

Traditionally, art history has been viewed as a concern about the context of creation, curation, critique, and classification of art, but its range and focus is seldom agreed on. A conventional view of art history may suggest that, as a field, it is dedicated to issues of classification and the development of related expertise in curation and critique. Yet, if we follow the arguments of the nineteenth-century philosopher Konrad Fiedler, 1 knowledge of historical form does not necessarily entail a knowledge of art, while knowledge of the history of art does not necessarily give one an understanding of art objects themselves, the material and symbolic qualities of an object of art, or deeper questions relating to the ontology of art.

update: we are allowed to upload author preproofs of our chapter and given the book is 524 pages, 34 authors and $319.20 Australian dollars in hardback format, that should make it more accessible. I will provide a link here when accepted at Curtin research espace.

 

Notes from DH2015 presentation

3D and game editors, Academic, Digital Humanities, Proceedings, publication, respositories, , ,

Infrastructure Requirements For A World Heritage Archival Infrastructure

Conference: DH2015 UWS Sydney

Here are notes from a short talk at Digital Humanities 2015 conference, Sydney. Never published. Writing a new paper on digital and virtual heritage infrastructures at the moment. So much of the below to update!

Abstract

  • This short presentation describes a project to survey, collate and develop tools for heritage sites and related built environments, focusing initially on Australia
  • Consolidate and disseminate 3D models and virtual environments of world heritage sites
  • Host virtual heritage examples, tutorials, tools and technologies involving community involvement and groups in policy formulation (plus PhDs and postdocs)
  • Evaluation and further application of 3D digital environments and digital models for classroom use and general visualisation projects

Digital heritage disappearing faster than the real heritage

  • “In the very near future some critical issues will need to be addressed; increased accessibility to (and sharing of) heritage data, consistent interface design for widespread public use and re-­‐presentations of work, the formalization of a digital heritage database, establishment of a global infrastructure, institutionalized, archival standards for digital heritage and most importantly the on-­‐going curation, of work forward in time as the technology evolves so that our current digital heritage projects will not be lost to future generations. We cannot afford to have our digital heritage disappearing faster than the real heritage or the sites it seeks to ‘preserve’ otherwise all of our technological advances, creative interpretations, visualizations and efforts will have been in vain.” [Thwaites, Harold. “Digital Heritage: What Happens When We Digitize Everything?” Visual Heritage in the Digital Age. Springer London, 2013. 327-­‐348.]
  • Virtual heritage==oxymoron

Virtual Heritage Environments (VHEs) should help the public to

  • Create, share and discuss hypothetical or counterfactual places.
  • Meet virtually in these places with colleagues to discuss them.
  • Contextually understand limitations forced on their predecessors.
  • Develop experiential ways to entice a new audience to both admire the content and the methods of their area of research.

Examples:

  1. Renaissance-Blaxun..GONE! Except in paper: An Authoring Tool for Intelligent Educational Games, Massimo Zancanaro, Alessandro Cappelletti, Claudio Signorini, Carlo Strapparava, *Buy eBook. We discuss the need of an authoring environment clearly separated by the game in order to allow a technical staff without any skill in either AI or Computer Science to encode the “intelligence” of the game..”
  2. Ancient Rome now ancient history.. GONE, REMOVED!
    http://www.openculture.com/2009/03/ancient_rome_in_3d_on_google_earth.html  OR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqMXIRwQniA
    Image: http://www.virtualtripping.com/google-earths-rome-reborn/  2008:“The original provider of the data asked that it be removed.”
  3. Beyond Time and Space..GONE! http://www.geek.com/news/expore-the-virtual-forbidden-city-courtesy-of-ibm-593731/ OR http://www.beyondspaceandtime.org/
    Long story short, according to Mure Dickie writing in the October 10, 2008 Financial Times: “A virtual Forbidden City offering the kind of immersive and interactive online experience pioneered by multiplayer role-playing games such as Second Life.”

Missing infrastructures

  • “Archaeology is messy, and it deals with three-dimensional artifacts in four-dimensional space-time. Its publications should reflect that.” Reference: Publishing Archaeological Linked Open Data: From Steampunk to Sustainability
  • “Museums must work together to combat cultural destruction”-Julian Raby
  • ‘You’re never going to be able to put the originals back – not only because they’ve been dispersed but because they would be prone to further destruction. We need to start thinking differently about how we activate the objects in our collections. We need to contextualise them, but also to think about how material that’s been dispersed can become a collective resource.;
    URL: http://www.apollo-magazine.com/museums-must-work-together-to-combat-cultural-destruction/#.VZPR9ZFOPao.twitter

The museums of tomorrow

https://twitter.com/plevy/status/433058523836985344/photo/1

Digital Preservation Does Not Mean Digital Safety

IBM estimates 90% of the world’s data has been created in last 2 years alone.. Minecraft Denmark created at 1:1 (1tb data,  4000 billion bricks) but blown up by US hackers, refer http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/07/07/reproducible-computing-rctrack-big-data-challenge/

Learning problems: how to

  • preserve and integrate 3D/multimedia
  • access and ownership of models, sites & paradata
  • lack of guidelines and shared procedures
  • no shared standardised evaluation data
  • audience issues

DH involves community and collaboration

Digital Humanities and Open Access: An Interview with Brett Bobley of the National Endowment for the Humanities

  • I’ve often said that digital humanities (or DH for short) is just an umbrella term – a term of convenience –that refers to a whole bunch of activities happening where the humanities interacts with technology.
  • Perhaps one skill that most (but not all) scholars may find helpful is the ability to work collaboratively. The vast majority of the DH grants we make are to teams of people from different disciplines working together.
  • ..we’re seeing more Internet-based humanities resources, databases, scholarly editions, and digital libraries that make incredible resources available for free.
  • http://www.righttoresearch.org/blog/digital-humanities-and-open-access-an-interview-wi.shtml

Bad citation rates

Check out the citation rates for different fields especially humanities at the bottom.

Recomposing Scholarship: The critical ingredients for a more inclusive scholarly communication system, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/10/25/gray-recomposing-scholarship/

  • Scholarship is not just about publication, but about interaction, interpretation, exchange, deliberation, discourse, debate, and controversy.
  • Plato writes of understanding as being a kind of flash that occurs between two people trying to come to terms with something from different viewpoints, a flash that arises from the friction of discussion and momentarily floods everything with light.
  • The value of a piece of scholarly text is in the interaction it has with its readers, in the sparks it generates, the friction and light that it produces – whether tomorrow, or in a hundred years time.

Research transcends disciplines, geography, institutions and stakeholders

  • Stakeholder Governed – a board-governed organisation drawn from stakeholder[s]…
  • Non-discriminatory membership
  • Transparent operations – achieving trust … best achieved through transparent processes and operations in general..
  • Cannot lobby – the community should collectively drive regulatory change.
  • Living will – publicly describe a plan addressing the condition under which an organisation would be wound down, how this would happen..
  • Formal incentives to fulfil mission & wind-down – infrastructures exist for a specific purpose… incentives to deliver on the mission and wind down.

Infra-infrastructure

Cultural heritage tools and archives 2013 workshop

Digital Heritage 2013

note: digital heritage 2015 Granada Spain 5-9 Oct

APA Bologna model

Blender (interactive in OpenSceneGraph)

International efforts

  • 3D Icons (3D HOP) in CIDOC CRM
  • Europeana
  • Smithsonian Institute X3D BETA
  • Fraunhoefer (X3DOM ON GITHUB)
  • Ariadne
  • CARARE
  • EU EPOCH
  • V-MUST
  • DARIAH, CLARIN, DASISH

2 year workshops-collab project

NEH idea: Hold two workshops a year apart, with technical support working on projects discussed in the interim..

UCLA VSim real-time exploration of highly detailed, 3D computer models

  • Supports interaction with content generated in free modeling software (e.g., SketchUp andBlender) using the common COLLADA format.
  • Mechanisms fto annotate their 3D work, embed & categorize comments about modeled environment
  • Mechanism for embedding spatially aware links to URLs and primary and secondary resources
  • Supporting the creation of academic arguments within the virtual environments either as a linear narrative or as a sequence of annotations encountered during user-driven exploration.
  • Providing a mechanism to package the 3D environment, associated narratives, and embedded resources into a single file for distribution
  • Accommodating citation of project content at model, narrative, node, & embedded resource levels.

Australia

  • Funding bodies (?)
  • Data Capture (CSIRO, iVEC)
  • Organisations (ICOMOS, CAA, ICOM, AIA)
  • Shareholders (education, spatial, tourism, GLAM)
  • Previous and current work (TROVE, HUNI, MUKURTU, Vanuatu Cultural Centre db, Canning Stock Route)

[Australia] historic collections could be lost to ‘digital dinosaurs’

  • Brunig: 5billion industry, 25% digitised, 629km of archives
  • MUST shift to open access models and greater collaboration with the public
  • Explore new approaches to copyright management that stimulate creativity and support creators
  • Build on aggregation initiatives such as the Atlas of Living Australia
  • Answer: exploiting the potential of Australia’s Academic and Research Network (AARNet) and the National Broadband Network (NBN) for collection and collaboration
  • http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Media/Australian-museums-risk-becoming-digital-dinosaurs.aspx OR 
https://theconversation.com/historic-collections-could-be-lost-to-digital-dinosaurs-31524

Australasian world heritage

  • 19 UNESCO WH listed sites, oldest rainforests + 1/3 world’s protected marine areas.
  • Iconic: Great Barrier Reef , Wet Tropics, Daintree Rainforest (QLD); Greater Blue Mountains (NSW); NTs’ Kakadu + Uluru/Kata Tjuta National Parks; WA’s Purnululu National Park (Kimberley) + Ningaloo coast.
  • 3 m hectare Tas. Wilderness World Heritage Area=7 criteria, most on planet.
  • Many remote: Australian Fossil Mammal Sites-Naracoorte SA and Riversleigh QLD.
  • Whole islands: QLD Fraser Island; entire Lord Howe Island Group NSW; and Macquarie, Heard and McDonald Islands in the sub-Antarctic region off the coast of Tasmania.
  • Harrowing histories: 11 World Heritage Australian Convict Sites.
  • Buildings: Sydney Opera House, Royal Exhibition Buildings + Carlton Gardens VIC.

Maintenance issues

  • Australia-short term funding
  • Conflicting or redundant organisations
  • Management model
  • Unforeseen costs
  • Data management planning
  • Compatibility and access issues
  • Interactive vs purely static archive formats

Options

  • Re-record everything (3D capture) accurately or agree on labelling.
  • Template or provide framework to support / record sites (from charter?)
  • Immersive explanation of every 3D site.
  • Policies to encourage use/re-use of 3D models.
  • Collection and dissemination network.
  • Store models, base components, paradata, or embed exes? See https://olivearchive.org/ “for long-term preservation of software, games, and other executable content.”

Incentives

  • provide showcases; critical mass for funding
  • use in teaching; wider range of audiences;
  • prizes awards or other recognition
  • long-term depository
  • citation and dynamic linking may be possible
  • Modification of CC for 3D models and sites
  • Changes to copyright system based on levels of detail or components

Format issues

  • Anyone who has worked in the field of computer graphics for even a short time knows about the bewildering array of storage formats for graphical objects. It seems as though every programmer creates a new file format for nearly every new programming project.
  • The way out of this morass of formats is to create a single file format that is both flexible enough to anticipate future needs and that is simple enough so as not to drive away potential users.
  • http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/ply/

References-software

Conclusion

 

PhD scholarship-University of York and Museum of London

Announcements, archaeology, digital heritage, PhD, virtual heritage

PhD Studentship: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD in Archaeology: Digital Recording, Fieldwork and Craft at Museum of London Archaeology

Anticipated start date for project: 1 October 2020

Closing date for applications: 1 May 2020 (was 1 April)

(interviews w/c 17 May)

Project description:

This Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) PhD, Digital Recording, Fieldwork and Craft at MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) investigates the impact of digital methods on the documentation, interpretation, publication, and dissemination in archaeological knowledge production. The proposed PhD will evaluate digital recording strategies for commercial archaeological units, using MOLA as a primary case study and with consultation from the Archaeology Data Service. Previous studies of digital recording have focussed on academic projects that do not have the scope, impact or challenges of the large, ongoing projects such as those performed regularly at MOLA. This research also examines the process of how archaeologists interpret remains, understand the past and how we may better transmit this understanding to others. Work in this area is emerging and applicable to broader questions of learning.

Potential research questions:

  • Do digital recording strategies impact the interpretation of archaeological remains?
  • Can digital recording be used to improve working conditions and enskilling of archaeologists?
  • How does data captured in the field feed into collaborative analysis projects that are already primarily digital?
  • How do digital recording methods in the field sit within the context of the wider use of digital data capture by finds and environmental specialists?
  • Can digital recording strategies enable broader public engagement, reuse or creative synergies outside of the traditional archaeological audience?

These are potential research questions for the student to undertake; the successful applicant will be able to shape the PhD with the support of the student’s supervisors.

This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Colleen Morgan (University of York) and Louise Fowler (MOLA). The student will be expected to spend time at both York and MOLA, as well as becoming part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK.

Funding notes: 

AHRC CDP doctoral training grants fund full-time studentships for 45 months (or part-time equivalent). The studentship has the possibility of being extended for an additional 3 months to provide professional development opportunities, or up to 3 months of funding may be used to pay for the costs the student might incur in taking up professional development opportunities.

The studentship covers  (i) a tax-free annual stipend at the standard Research Council rate (£15,285 for 2020-2021), (ii) an allowance of £1000/year to enable collaboration with the partner organisation (as they are based in London), (iii) an additional allowance of £1000/year for expenses incurred in undertaking research, and (iv) tuition fees at the UK/EU rate.

Entry requirements: Students with, or expecting to gain, at least an Upper Second Class Honours degree, or equivalent, are invited to apply. The interdisciplinary nature of this research project means that we welcome applications from students with backgrounds in any relevant subject that provides the necessary skills, knowledge and experience for the project, including archaeology, user-experience design and computing, anthropology, and digital sociology. We endeavour to be inclusive and flexible regarding applicants with caring obligations, disabilities and other considerations.

Nationality restriction: 

Candidates must have a relevant connection with the UK to qualify for a full AHRC award, i.e. they must have been ordinarily resident in the UK throughout the three-year period preceding the date of application, or have settled status in the UK. Non-EU candidates who have not been ordinarily resident in the UK for the last three years, or who were resident wholly or mainly for the purposes of education, are not eligible to apply.

Candidates from EU countries are eligible for full awards if they have been resident in the UK, for education or other purposes, for at least three years prior to the start of their programme. Candidates from EU countries who have not resided in the UK for three years prior to the start of their programme will normally be eligible for a fees-only award.

The University is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community – a place where we can all be ourselves and succeed on merit. We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, campus facilities and services to support staff from different backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from BAME, LGBTQ+ and disabled candidates, who are currently under-represented within the University of York in Archaeology.

How to apply:

Application is by covering letter, CV and online application form, and should be made through the University of York online application system.

Please read the ‘How to apply’ tab before submitting your application: http://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/postgraduate-study/research-postgrads/application/

Further Enquiries

For further enquiries, please contact Colleen Morgan (colleen.morgan@york.ac.uk).

Writing Your Own Position Description

Academic, Digital Humanities, job, virtual heritage, visualisation

More than a decade ago I was asked to write my own (ideal) job description.

A lot has changed since then but it was an interesting exercise, and I recommend it. In a few weeks I might even write my own new ideal job description.

Position description for <insert University research centre here>

Job title: Director of Research into Virtual Places

Duties

  1. Help <the centre> structure research agenda and aims.
  2. Develop research resources; establish academic and professional terminology, evaluation strategies, rigorous research methods and innovative case studies that are likely to be of use to other researchers.
  3. Advise on, direct and augment the publication record and reputation for <the centre> as mentor for junior researchers and in own research field.
  4. Chair and advise <the centre> research committee on new and emerging research trends, events, gaps, and issues.
  5. Help mentor and coordinate (and in some cases, supervise), students who can combine innovative technological research with theoretically polished writing that reveal constructive but critical thinking.
  6. Develop some or all of the below research themes via collaboration and personal research.
  7. Help develop research-industry collaborations, and associated industry links (in digital media, tourism, digital entertainment, etc).

Address the Below Research Themes as A Researcher

  1. Virtual places, theory, definition, and design.
  2. Meaningful Interaction in virtual places (appropriate inbuilt evaluation, public and specialist annotation methods, serious gaming and instructional design issues of virtual places, natural mapping for thematic interfaces and peripherals to afford improved platial experiences).
  3. Presence (especially cultural presence) in virtual places: terminology and experimental validation (clarify the relationships between place, presence, and intentional/non-intentional interaction).
  4. Prototyping virtual places and environments: develop and evaluate new techniques and procedures.
  5. Research Methodologies for virtual places: internal and external, pre and post-experience, emic and etic methods and tools for virtual or otherwise digitally mediated places.

Expected <Research Centre> Outcomes

  1. A strong international academic profile through advising on, directing and augmenting the publication record and reputation for <the centre>.
  2. A strong web presence.
  3. A flourishing staff-student research culture.
  4. The research committee has been helped by the research director to create and maintain a lucid and coherent ethical clearance procedure for proposed experimental designs involving user testing and the general public.

Expected Technical Skills

  1. Some experience in digital media skills (including web design).
  2. 3D and related design skills in creating virtual places.
  3. Experience in creating or supervising prototypes.
  4. Ability to run, mentor or advise on experimental designs, case studies, and evaluations.

Suitable Background

  1. Related academic qualifications in architecture, philosophy, engineering, or HCI.
  2. Familiarity with the research fields of virtual environments/ VR, virtual heritage, place theory, the design and use of online places, architectural theory of place, philosophy and aesthetics and place, and presence research.
  3. Experience in developing and or supervising virtual environment research, digital media research, and methodological studies into appropriate research methods (especially spatial design research) at tertiary level.
  4. Experience in game design may be beneficial.
  5. Experience with Instructional design and user documentation (for procedures, methods, and terminology.
  6. Some experience in digital media skills (including web design).
  7. 3D and related design skills in creating virtual places.
  8. Understanding of scripting issues in creating virtual places.
  9. Experience in creating or supervising prototypes.
  10. Experience with both academic studies in the area and industry practices in IT.
  11. International academic profile and reputation for research, speaking, and publication in cultural presence, meaningful interaction, and virtual places.

Suitable Aptitudes/Skillsets

  1. Ability to work with different skill sets, cultural backgrounds, professional perspectives, and disparate disciplines.
  2. Ability to work individually and as a member of a team.
  3. Work experience in different countries and cultures.
  4. Ability to source research material, write high quality academic publications, and deliver/edit online articles for  <the centre> website.
  5. Analytical mind.
  6. Experience in public speaking.

 

Conferences, Journals: h-index, Impact

Academic, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, Journal, Proceedings, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , , , , ,

Cultural heritage journals, especially digital heritage journals (and a few related conferences) don’t fare well at SJR-Journal Search. Compare their H-index and Quartiles to games journals and conferences. In the more VR side of things, Presence still does quite well but Virtual Reality journal is not doing as well as I expected.*

*CAVEAT: In many cases the latest figures seem to be from 2017 or 2018.

2020 Conferences that may still go ahead

Conference

ICOMOS 2020 General Assembly in Sydney Australia looks to be postponed or cancelled but many others appear to still be taking place (but this may change).

*START*DUECONFTHEMELOCATION
01-Jul-2001-May-20CASA2020Computer Animation and Social Agents (POSTPONED)Bournemouth UK
03-Sep-2003-Jun-20ONM2020Inclusive Museum: historical Urban LandscapesLisbon Portugal
09-Sep-2007-May-20JADHJapan Digital Humanities: Microcosms and HubsOsaka Japan
23-Sep-20?BestinHeritagethe best in heritage 2020Dubrivnik Croatia
01-Oct-2015-Apr-20CAA2020-GKBig Data in ArchaeologyAthens Greece
01-Oct-2030-Apr-20BoundariesBoundaries of Here and NowVenice Italy
10-Oct-20?Living DHIntegrating the Past into the Present and FutureSydney Australia
01-Nov-2021-Apr-20CHIPLAY1 to 4 NovOttawa Canada
01-Nov-2029-Jun-20WCHRWorkshop on Computational Humanities ResearchAmsterdam Netherlands
01-Nov-2029-Jun-20VRSTOttawa Canada
04-Nov-2004-May-20TIPC3The Interactive PastsLeiden The Netherlands
28-Nov-2031-May-20DHAAustralasian Association for Digital Humanities ConferenceChristchurch NZ
01-Dec-2009-Jun-20GALAGames and Learning Alliance conferenceLavel France
18-Dec-2030-Apr-20Tag42theoretical archaeology groupLeicester UK
19-Apr-21?CAA2021Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in ArchaeologyLimasso Cyprus
08-May-2110-Sep-20CHI2021CHI2021Yokohama Japan
26-Jul-21?DH2021Digital HumanitiesTokyo Japan
01-Sep-21?MW2021Museums on the WebWashington DC
10-Oct-21?ConnectedpastThe Connected Past 2021 *summer 2021Heraklion, Crete
11-Jul-22?DH2022Digital HumanitiesGraz Austria
START*DUE*CONFERENCETHEMELOCATION
01-Oct-2015-Apr-20CAA2020-GKBig Data in ArchaeologyAthens Greece
01-Nov-2021-Apr-20CHIPLAY1 to 4 NovOttawa Canada
01-Oct-2030-Apr-20BoundariesBoundaries of Here and NowVenice Italy
18-Dec-2030-Apr-20Tag42theoretical archaeology groupLeicester UK
01-Jul-2001-May-20CASA2020Computer Animation and Social Agents (POSTPONED)Bournemouth UK
04-Nov-2004-May-20TIPC3The Interactive PastsLeiden The Netherlands
09-Sep-2007-May-20JADHJapan Digital Humanities: Microcosms and HubsOsaka Japan
28-Nov-2031-May-20DHAAustralasian Association for Digital Humanities ConferenceChristchurch NZ
03-Sep-2003-Jun-20ONM2020Inclusive Museum: historical Urban LandscapesLisbon Portugal
01-Dec-2009-Jun-20GALAGames and Learning Alliance conferenceLavel France
01-Nov-2029-Jun-20WCHRWorkshop on Computational Humanities ResearchAmsterdam Netherlands
01-Nov-2029-Jun-20VRSTOttawa Canada
08-May-2110-Sep-20CHI2021CHI2021Yokohama Japan